SE, Please do somthing about the boring gear stats.. Please just read first...

[Nalien]

And don't even pretend such things would not be a requirement in PF and DF or even something as simple as FC recruitment.

I still believe the Materia system can be modified to provide the "interesting stuff" we can do with gear. Generic enhancements aren't the way to go.

Well now you've confused me. You're for Materia offering "interesting stuff"?

I can check your gear and see what Materia you've melded. I cannot check your own personal menu and see what stats you've unlocked/set. So you'd shoot down the suggestion no one but yourself can really check because people will be elitist, but you're for the one which people can actually out right check by examining you? That seems backwards to me, sorry.

As far as balance goes, individually I do not think these things would be particularly powerful or anywhere close to required. They would just be bonuses for people who want the bonuses, just like getting full raid-tier gear even though you cleared the raid without it to get it, except unlike such gear (and materia) elitist pricks wouldn't be able to examine you to determine whether you even have that 0.5% bonus. Something extra for the developers to worry about balancing, sure, but personally I'd rather my subscription fee go into doing interesting "new" (how new is it when its from a 15 year old game?) things, than just copy and pasting the exact same progression system from 2.0 update after update.

Again though, these are optional traits. Nobody would really be able to check you have them and kick you as a result... It's not like Swiftcast or something, where people can observe you never using it or check your Black Mages level to see if you even have it. Nobody would really be able to discriminate based on such traits. I mean perhaps someone with a parser could, but that's already against the rules so /shrug. Perhaps something like Auto-Life, but that's OP single player tier and I really don't think anyone would suggest we get something like that.

[Sylve]

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Heh. I wasn't quite as articulate as to what i meant, Sorry.
I'm against generic enhancements because they become a balance factor for content. Do the devs expect the Tanks to all have the Enhanced damage reduction skills for their cooldowns? DO you expect the bards to have the highest rank of Song enhancements? Do you expect the Healers to have the Enhancements to Regens/Shields?
Which Enhancements do you balance around?

I made a post a long while back about using Materia to modify our skills directly, Sort of like what the WoW Glyph System was originally supposed to do but ended up being generic damage/duration/cooldown bonuses.
The short version of it is basically change Materias to offer changes to the way our Skills work.
To throw an example, a Materia that causes Umbral Ice and Astral Fire for a Black Mage to flip effects, Allowing a Black Mage to use Blizzard the way they now use Fire.
Or a Materia that causes a Monks Auto Attack speed to skyrocket, but reduces the damage dealt accordingly so that its a visual change more than a power bonus.
Essentially, small, mostly playstyle changes that make our Jobs feel a bit more personal in HOW we play them without altering the base mechanics of what they do.
The Egi Glamour system talked about by Yoshi is one such system that lets us alter our Jobs visually without the need for attendant Balance modifications.

[Nalien]

Heh. I wasn't quite as articulate as to what i meant, Sorry.
I'm against generic enhancements because they become a balance factor for content. Do the devs expect the Tanks to all have the Enhanced damage reduction skills for their cooldowns? DO you expect the bards to have the highest rank of Song enhancements? Do you expect the Healers to have the Enhancements to Regens/Shields?
Which Enhancements do you balance around?

Well, I expect them to be marginal enough to ultimately not really matter, just like optimal gear ultimately doesn't matter when it comes to clearing content, just like optimal party set up doesn't, just like food doesn't really matter.

People who want every single advantage would care, people who just like that sort of thing would care, people who are "casual" perhaps wouldn't and it wouldn't really impact them in the slightest. Fights would continue to be balanced around a lower iLevel than what people will eventually farm them with, with Healers not DPSing, without food, etc. Mechanics will still be the biggest priority and knowing your rotation would still be the biggest boon to any Job. All this would be is an additional piece of food for those who obsess over such things to obsess over. It would perhaps require some additional balancing, but if they keep the bonuses small enough it wouldn't be anything serious, there shouldn't be a case where you're required to have "Enhances Ballads", for example.

Just like food and optimal gear, it would just be something to speed encounters along, rather than a requirement.

Okay, I read that post and honestly that's a great idea. Not specifically for us as players but for SE's wallets. Force players to grind equipment XYZ = sub fee's. If people enjoy it it's a bonus.

I imagine it would only force those of us with some form of OCD who'll have to unlock every single trait, though personally I'd probably enjoy that so obvious bias is obvious. Final Fantasy IXs AP system had a limit to how much you could even set, so they out right have a cap on how much of a benefit such a system could provide, meaning they can make it just as marginal as food and other stuff. I'd like to think it would just be something there for those of us who'd enjoy obsessing over some tiny percentage bonus by looking at an encounter and adjusting accordingly.

There is also the fact that, for some of the more "important" ones, you can perhaps remove the actual need to go out and grind; If you're a Bard, chances are you'll be getting the AF2 gear in a few weeks. If that had Enhances Ballads on it to unlock, like the suggestion... suggests.... You've already got that then.